The present invention relates to a method for the determination of the current position of a mobile device, to a software element, a mobile device comprising such a software element as well as to a mobile device comprising means for the determination of its current position.
The present invention generally relates to the field of mobile computing, hand-held computers, wireless communication and mobile multimedia middleware. Particularly it relates to selecting and appropriate location determination method according to a stored set of operation parameters describing the different location determination""s devices available.
Future hand-held devices will include a set of different location devices helping to determine the current geo-position of the mobile device. The best known type of devices are GPS (or D-GPS) receivers. Others are infrared beacons for indoor use or GSM cell broadcast for transmitting the area code to which the mobile phone belongs. In the future additional means like the GSM location service or microsensor techniques will be available.
Most devices currently used are only including one or two of this position means. In the future there will be problems when a plurality of positioning devices will be available.
Therefore, the present invention has as an object to provide for a technique for handling a plurality of accessable geolocation positioning devices.
This object is achieved by means of the features of the independent claims. The dependent claims develop further the central idea of the present invention.
Therefore, according to the present invention a method for the determination of the current position of a mobile device is provided. The method comprises the step of accessing wirelessly a plurality of different position information sources for acquiring position information, the position information comprising respectively at least information about the position of the corresponding position information source. At least one of the plurality of accessed position information sources is selected depending on the values of operation parameters associated with the different position information sources. The position of the mobile device is then determined based on the position information of the at least one selected position information source.
The operation parameters can comprise at least one of availability, cost, speed, power consumption and quality of the position information service.
New position information sources to be accessed can be added dynamically during operation.
A position information source can be selected manually.
The acquired position information of the at least one position information source and the corresponding operation parameters can be stored.
A set of operation parameters used for the selection step defines a selection policy, wherein different selection policies can be set.
In case more than one position information source is selected, the corresponding position information can be combined.
The invention furthermore proposes a software element executing, when loaded in a mobile device, a method as set forth above.
The invention furthermore proposes a mobile device comprising such a software element.
According to the present invention a mobile device comprising means for the determination of its current position is provided. The means for the position determination comprise means for wirelessly accessing a plurality of different position information sources for acquiring position information. The position information comprises respectively at least information about the position of the corresponding position information source. The means for the position determination comprise furthermore means for selecting at least one of the plurality of accessed position information sources depending on the values of operation parameters associated with the different position sources. Furthermore, means for determining the position of the mobile device based on the position information of the at least one selected position information source is provided.
The operation parameters can be transmitted along with the position information or can be known in advance to the mobile device. Furthermore, the operation parameters can be derived from the transmission of the position information itself (for example in the case of the periodicity of the transmission, the accuracy etc.).
Further objects, features and advantages of the present invention will come clear from the following description of preferred embodiments taken into conjunction with the figures of the enclosed drawings.